The invention relates to an electronic apparatus for obtaining information from a document, and more particularly, to an apparatus for determining the location and shape of a conductive area printed on a document such as a lottery ticket.
It is often desirable to obtain information from documents in addition to the human readable information printed on the surface of the document. For instance, documents of many types are susceptible to tampering, alteration and counterfeiting. Lottery tickets for probability games are an example of a document which is particularly susceptible to tampering. A probability game lottery ticket normally has play areas, each containing play indicia covered by an opaque material, for example a latex material. To play the game, an individual scratches off the latex covering a specified number of the play areas to reveal the play indicia underneath. The player then determines if the combination of revealed play indicia is a winner such as the play indicia are all the same symbol or add up to a winning number.
Part of the popularity of such probability games is derived from the fact that each and every ticket is a potential winner. If a player has lost, the player can scratch off the latex covering the remaining play areas and verify that at least one winning combination is present. Consequently, this type of game is generally perceived by lottery players as being more legitimate than other types of instant lottery games.
The fact that every ticket is potentially a winner also invites players to tamper with the tickets. Because every ticket can win if the right play areas are selected, some players look for ways to determine the play indicia contained in every play area in order to identify the location of a winning combination. If the player can conceal the fact that he has seen the play indicia, the player subsequently can remove the latex covering from the play areas containing the winning combination and claim a prize.
One technique used to accomplish this result involves lifting the latex to look at the play indicia before gluing the latex back into place. Typically, probability game lottery tickets are validated by the visual observation of a human lottery agent. It can be difficult to visually detect this sort of tampering. Thus, probability game lottery tickets are particularly susceptible to fraudulent tampering and because no effective way of preventing or detecting such tampering has been developed, probability lottery games have not become commercially successful.
A second threat to the integrity of a document is the intentional alteration of its contents. For example, an individual may try to alter the information on a driver""s license, contract, test answer form, invoice or inventory form. Such an alteration may involve the changing of a number in the document by removing the original number and inserting a new number. In the case of laminated documents, such as drivers licenses, the document can be delaminated and the driver""s photograph can be replaced with the photograph of another person and the license relaminated. Such alterations can be very difficult to detect, especially if there are no other copies of the document.
A third type of problem posed in the document security context involves counterfeiting. Rather than altering an existing document, the counterfeiter actually creates a document and attempts to pass it off as being genuine. Thus, paper currency, tickets, tags, and labels are often counterfeited and proffered as the real thing. The magnitude of this problem has substantially increased with the advent of the color photo copier.
For example, the owner of a trademark might sell t-shirts bearing that trademark to increase the value of the shirt. In an attempt to thwart pirates, the trademark owner might also attach a identifying tag to the t-shirts. This makes it easier to determine whether a given t-shirt is genuine. In order to disguise the fact that t-shirts are counterfeits, a counterfeiter will reproduce not only the t-shirt""s design, but also the tag. While being forced to create a similar looking tag will increase his costs, if the value of the trademark is sufficiently high, the counterfeiter will continue to attach a counterfeited tag.
There have been a number of techniques developed to improve the security of printed documents including the addition of magnetic materials to the document which are magnetically encoded with information that can be used to verify its authenticity. However, magnetically encoded information can in many instances be easily detected, read and altered and thus is not always suitable for verifying the integrity of a document and as such is generally not suitable for lottery tickets and probability tickets in particular. Another disadvantage of magnetically encoding information on a document, is that alterations to the magnetically encoded information are not generally detectable. Other methods for verifying the integrity of lottery tickets have been used such as inks that change color when tampered with but none of these methods have been sufficiently secure to permit the commercial sale of probability tickets.
There have also been a number of techniques developed for using electrical circuits in documents to represent information. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,699,311, 5,471,040 and 5,484,292. However, these documents suffer from a number of disadvantages including being expensive to manufacture and the delectability of the circuits in the document.
Hence, it is desirable to provide an improved system for obtaining information from documents to discourage tampering, alteration and counterfeiting.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a system for obtaining information from a document utilizing an electronic apparatus for determining the characteristics of an electronic circuit element printed on the document.
Another object of the invention is to provide a system for obtaining information from documents utilizing an electronic verification machine from receiving the documents and electronically coupling with a circuit element printed on the document such that a characteristic of the circuit element can be detected.
A further object of the invention is to provide an electronic verification machine for use with a document having a printed circuit element where the electronic verification machine electronically couples with the circuit element and generates a detection signal representing a characteristic of the circuit element. The electronic verification machine applies an excitation signal to the circuit element printed on the document and includes a detection circuit which generates the detection signal in response to the excitation signal. The excitation signal can be an AC signal having a predetermined frequency which can be coupled to the circuit element by a number of different methods including direct physical contact, capacitive or inductive coupling.
Still another object of the invention is to provide an electronic verification machine for use with a document having at least one conductive material printed on the surface where the verification machine includes an array of sensor plates, a circuit for applying an AC excitation signal to the document and a detection circuit connected to the sensor plates for detecting the presence of at least a portion of the conductive material. The detection circuit can also be used to generate a signal representing the shape of the conductive material on the document which in turn can be used to compare the shape to a predetermined shape stored in a memory.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an electronic verification machine for use with lottery tickets having a scratch off coating that includes a conductive material where the electronic verification machine includes an excitation circuit for applying an excitation signal to the ticket and a validation circuit responsive to the excitation signal for determining the location of the scratch-off coating on the ticket.
A further object of the invention is to provide an electronic verification machine for use with pull-tab tickets where the upper portion of the ticket having the pull tabs also includes a layer of conductive ink such that the verification machine by applying a signal to the ticket can determine if one or more of the pull tabs have been removed. The excitation signal can also be used to determine if the ticket is a legitimate ticket.
An additional object of the invention is to provide an electronic verification machine that can determine the electrical signature of a circuit element printed on a document and apply a signal to the circuit element sufficient to stigmatize the document. This stigmatization can be achieved if for example the circuit element is a fuse and the applied signal has sufficient power to blow this fuse. In addition to stigmatization, this technique can be used to store data on the document where a selected number of circuit elements or fuses are blown by the applied signal.
These objects are accomplished in the present invention by printing an electrical circuit onto the document. The circuits are printed in conductive or semiconductive ink using, for example, a gravure printing process. When the authenticity of the document is determined, an electronic verification machine is used to detect the presence and status of the circuit. Any attempted tampering or alteration of the printed document causes detectable changes in the characteristics of the circuit. Additionally, counterfeiting documents is made more difficult because a circuit acceptable to the electronic verification machine also must be counterfeited. The expense of determining how to print, and actually printing, an acceptable circuit generally outweighs any possible gain from the counterfeiting of documents. Therefore, the system reduces or eliminates counterfeiting of printed documents.
The secure document system is potentially useful for a wide variety of documents including, but not limited to, lottery tickets, especially probability game lottery tickets, currency, traveller""s checks, credit cards, money cards, passports, stock and bond certificates, bank notes, driver""s licenses, wills, coupons, rebates, contracts, food stamps, magnetic stripes, test answer forms, invoices, inventory forms, tags, labels and original art work.